


A Blow Gone Awry

by The_Wavesinger



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Getting Together, Time Travel, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-04-06 07:04:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19057672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Wavesinger/pseuds/The_Wavesinger
Summary: Rey finds a strange artifact in an old Jedi's house.She gets a chance, and a choice.





	A Blow Gone Awry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sevenofspade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenofspade/gifts).



Rey isn’t good at spying.

She isn’t good at spying or diplomacy or getting reluctant planetary leaders to provide money and resources to the Resistance (understandably reluctant, given how good the First Order is at making everyone and everything opposing it go boom, but it’s still frustrating). General Leia is good at these things. Finn’s friend Poe is, apparently, good at these things.

She, on the other hand, is not. She’s good at manipulating the Force (well, kind of), fighting, and surviving in the desert. Two of those three skills are useful here in Tatooine (General Leia had taken the scraggly remains of the Resistance to Tatooine of all the godsforsaken places, and she knows why and she likes the reason even less).

If she stays on Tatooine, though, she’s going to go absolutely, utterly mad. Jakku was enough sand to last a lifetime.

Which brings her back to the main problem: she isn’t good at spying.

So she’s poking through an old house instead (a Jedi lived there, the General had said, once upon a time, and how the General knows Rey doesn’t understand). Maybe there’s something in here they can use. Something she can use to get _off_ this planet and actually help fight the First Order.

(It’s not the sand that’s bugging her, to be honest. It’s how hard she failed.)

Mostly the hut has piles and piles of dust and sand, even after she’d cleared as much of it away as she could with the Force. There are some interesting-looking figurines, and she’s sorting through them, but they’re more children’s toys than anything else. There are a couple of mini pod-racers too, and she has to smile at the sandy-haired little doll sitting in one of them.

She’s putting the figurines back on the shelf when something clicks.

Rey freezes.

It could be that she’s hearing things, of course, but it doesn’t seem like—

She presses her palm down on the place on the shelf she’d been touching before.

Nothing happens.

 _Think_. This had been the house of  a Jedi. How could the Jedi have hid something? The Force, of course, but she doesn’t know of any techniques to Force-lock something and hide it away long after you’ve died.

Except she doesn’t know so much about the Force.

But then how can she—

 _Focus_.

Intentions. She sends a tendril of the Force down through her body, pushes it into her fingertips. Puts everything she’s feeling into it, and breathes.

Click.

There’s the clicking sound again, but this time, when Rey lifts up her hand, there’s a little data chip nestled between her fingers.

A data chip that looks like it can fit perfectly in one of Artoo’s ports.

It’s something important, she thinks. And, the General will be happy. And, _finally_.

She races out the door, clutching the data chip like a lifeline.

—

They slot the data chip into one of Artoo’s ports, gathered around the dining table of the old house ( _Luke’s_ house, but Rey tries not to think about that).

Except nothing happens. They wait, and they wait, and nothing happens.

Maybe it’s activated by the Force, Rey thinks. At the same time the General says, gently, “Rey are you sure that—”

A holo flickers to life. It’s an old man, maybe sixty, in the same kind of robes Luke was wearing, his hands folded into his sleeves and an infinitely weary expression on his face.

The General gasps. “ _Ben_?”

The man in the holo smiles. His voice is familiar, Rey thinks, almost like that voice she heard in the vision that seems so long ago. “Luke, or Leia. Whichever one of you it is. Both your voices are keyed to it, and I hope it’s the two of you who find it, but—”

The man (Ben?) pauses for a second. Rey blinks, and next to her, the General shifts and swallows. “Anyway. I hope you never have cause to find this, or use it. But if you do—I have put several precautions to make sure this never falls into enemy hands. Even then, the knowledge I’m about to give you might destroy you.”

“There are co-ordinates on this chip to a temple of a race of Force-users who died out long before the Jedi came into being. The temple, it is said, dwells at the edge of the galaxy holds a secret that can undo one single choice, or give you one chance. ”

 _One_ _choice_ , Rey thinks, and the throne room, or getting to the last of the Resistance faster, before Lu—or maybe back on the island, or—does it have to be _her_ choice? What if she went back, stopped Luke or. Or helped him s—but no. She won’t think like that, and besides, the man is still speaking.

“The price of that undoing, I will not tell you, but the temple should have the records you need.” The man bows his head. “Go to the temple only if you have no other choice, if both Yoda and I are dead and no other Jedi walk the galaxy. The risk was too much for me—you will have to judge if it is so for you.”

“If you need to, you can key the co-ordinates to one other person, but they must also be a Force user. This message will only play for you though.”

The man looks up, then, right at the General. “Luke, Leia. I—I am so sorry I couldn’t do more for you or for y—for you. I hope this is not goodbye, but if it is: goodbye. And if you do choose to go, remember not to give into temptation, as great as it may seem.”

Then the holo winks out of existence.

There are tear-tracks on the General’s face. But she wipes them away, turns to Rey. “Rey—you heard all that, and if Ben—if Obi-Wan says it’s dangerous it’s dangerous. I would go, but I’m needed here. If you don’t want to risk it, I understand—”

“No!” Rey realizes she’s interrupted, and winces. “Sorry. No. This could be my—our chance to fix everything. I want to go.” She can’t not go. If she doesn’t take this chance

“Very well.” Leia sighs. “But Rey. Be careful.”

Rey smiles. “I will.”

—

Tatooine is on the Outer Rim, so Rey hadn’t thought that the edge of the galaxy would be very far away. But there is, apparently, a part of the galaxy that stretches beyond the Outer Rim. Beyond, Rey suspects, Ahch-To, though she isn’t sure.

All she knows is that it took a three-week journey to get to this planet when she was traveling as fast as she could push the Falcon.

It’s been a lonely three weeks, just her. Chewie and even Beebee-Eight are needed. The General apologized, but Rey understands.

The fact that she understands doesn’t mean that she’s not glad they’ve landed and her feet are touching solid ground again, though.

The planet, as it happens, is _beautiful_. The co-ordinates are supposed to lead her to land almost right next to the temple, so there won’t be time for sightseeing. But what she can see of the planet is lush and green. She landed in a large clearing, a perfect circle, maybe half a kilometer in diameter, but even then, the thin grasses tickle her knees and swish around her as she moves. The clearing is ringed by trees that rise up to almost touch the sky. After Tatooine, the deep emerald of the leaves blooming on the trees is like a draught of cool water.

She could stand here and drink in everything around her all day. It’s the first time she’s felt light since Ahch-To.

She has a mission, though. So she sets out into the trees, holding the tracker she’s keyed the exact co-ordinates of the temple into.

As she wanders deeper into the forest, her skin prickles. It’s the same kind of unease that she felt near the mirror cave on Ahch-To, the Dark Side almost trumpeting its presence. Maybe this was the wrong place, she thinks. Maybe this was a bad idea.

But just as she’s about to give up and turn back, the trees start thinning.

The clearing she steps into is nothing like the clearing she landed in.

It’s not a clearing, for one. It’s a great lake ringed by the forest, clear blue water glistening in the sun. There are what looks like stepping-stones, moss-covered and untrodden, leading to the center of the lake.

And at the center of the lake is the temple.

It’s unimpressive to look at, just a crumbling pile of stone shaped vaguely like a house. But the Dark is deepest there, and Rey can feel it tugging at her mind, bending twisting.

The strange thing, though, is that it’s not only the dark she can feel. There’s a sharp needlepoint of—something. Something that she knows, senses, is not evil. Something clear and pure and razor-edged, a beacon in the midst of the swampy darkness stretching its fingers across her.

Almost without thought, she begins to make her way across the stepping stones.

The stones are firm, every one of them, but she keeps checking the footing before she steps. Take no chances.

They’re also slippery, and there’s a strong wind blowing across the lake. She almost falls once, twice, thrice, catching herself each time.  The fourth time she falls, it’s almost near the temple. She looses her balance and splashes into the lake, but the water isn’t deep anymore. It’s cool and refreshing and she almost doesn’t mind falling. The temple is almost there anyway.

There’s even a small beach with loose sand. Her footprints leave marks as she walks, but even the sand feels different under her feet than desert sand does. Less shifting, less loose.

The stones, when she reaches them, are cold to her touch, and she shivers instinctively. Not just with the chill of the stones but with something else. Something—other, screaming at her to turn back.

But she’s come all this way. She’s not going to turn back now.

She finds a door, steps inside.

It’s dark. Pitch-black. She’s fumbling for some light, for the torch she keeps in her pack, when a blue light flares at the end of what appears to be a corridor.

 _Well_ , she thinks, and begins to walk.

—

The corridor is longer than she thought it would be. She doesn’t reach for her chrono, but the ache in her feet lets her know she’s been walking for a long while before she reaches the light.

Walking downwards, too. She hadn’t noticed, at first, but the corridor is sloped downwards. The roof has stayed level, been higher and higher above her, until she can’t even see it.

Finally, though, the blue light is growing stronger. The prickling darkness is growing stronger too, but it’s as if that needle-prick of purity is running straight through the middle of the path. She holds onto it as she walks into a large circular room.

The blue light is almost blinding for a second, but then her eyes grow adjusted to it.

The light is bleeding from the walls, suffusing the entire room in an unearthly glow. But otherwise the room doesn’t look very temple-like.

It’s just a room. No altars, no wall-carvings, no statues. Just a rough lump of rock at the center of the room, and something black and glistening on top of the rock.

Rey is reaching out to touch the black thing when a voice makes her freeze.

“Stop.”

The voice echoes along the walls. This was supposed to be the home of a long-dead order, she thinks. Long-dead.

Except there’s a woman approaching her.

The woman is translucent, almost, awash with the same blue glow the rest of the room holds. She’s tall, and thin, and wearing some strange swishy pants and a loose shirt that look almost like a uniform. And she’s hovering above the floor.

Rey blinks.

The woman smiles. “Welcome, Rey.”

Wait. “Wait. How do you know my name.” Which isn’t the best response, probably. She should probably take out her lightsaber and fight, but the woman feels right here. As if she belongs here.

“I know many things.”

That is…disturbing. “Then,” Rey says, “You know I need that. Whatever it is.” She jerks her head toward the black object.

“So sure that you need it without knowing what it is?” The woman’s smile has slipped off her face, and she’s put herself between Rey and the thing. _Not_ good.

But whoever she is, Rey doesn’t know if she can fight her. Convincing her is the way to go, then. “I—we—need to defeat the First Order. To defeat K—Ren.”

“Why?”

Rey blinks. “Why what?”

“Why do you need to defeat the First Order?”

“Because they’re evil,” Rey says. And, “Because they need to go.”

“Why?”

I just told you why, Rey wants to say. But she’s not stupid. Something else, then. “They’ve murdered millions.”

The woman says, placidly, “But if you gave up, surrendered, they would stop their rampage. So, why?”

“ _Would_ they?” That scares Rey, more than anything, about the First Order. How willing they are to kill even when people have done nothing wrong. “They keep destroying things,” (she feels Luke’s death in the Force, all over again, for a second) “and they’ll never stop even if they win. There is never going to be perfection. We can’t force people to get along and stop war by killing everyone. That’s not how people work.”

“Ah.” The woman nods. Something like approval. But then, “What makes you any different?”

“Because we _don’t_ ,” Rey says sharply. “We don’t because it’s wrong.” It’s obvious, so obvious, even when it’s something she’s struggled with. “If someone surrenders, we don’t kill them. If someone decides to change, we help them. That’s how we are.”

“But you still fight a war.” A cool, aloof observation.

Rey wants to hit her. It’s not like they have a choice, it’s that or let the First Order win. “I don’t know,” she cries. Because she doesn’t know. “Maybe we should all give up and join the First Order. Maybe they’re actually right. Maybe no war but the galaxy under their rule is better than trying to prevent them from winning. I don’t _know_. All I know is that the First Order is a terrible force of destruction. And I have to make a choice, and I can’t see the future. I can’t see all the possible futures. I regret some of the choices I’ve made, but I can’t undo them. And I can’t know now all the consequences of any single choice. So I made the best choice I could, and I’m fighting them because it might not be the right choice but it’s the best choice I can make right now .”

She realizes that she’s out of breath and panting.

The woman is smiling. “What if you could change one choice?”

That’s what the man—what Obi-Wan—had said, Rey remembers. “Is that what this thing does?”

The woman regards her for one long moment. Then she nods. “Yes.”

A million thoughts are racing through Rey’s head. What if. She’s reaching, again, for the object.

“Stop.” The woman shakes her head once, sharply, and somehow Rey is pushed back across the room without being touched. “There are things you should know before you decide if you wish to use the stone.”

“What kind of thing?” It’s a time travel stone, Rey is sure of that. There must be rules. But if you can _change_ one thing—

“You sense the Dark Side around it, do you not?”

Rey nods once, reluctantly.

“That is because it was created of the Dark, and in creating it our people were destroyed. You have no stories of my people. None of us hide out in far corners of the universe. We all died, and it is only by accident that the universe did not die with us.”

The woman’s voice has taken on a lilting cadence as she speaks. There’s a strange note to it that makes the hairs on Rey’s arms stand up.

“We did not realize,” the woman continues, “when we were making it, what we were doing. But the universe moves forward. That is the order of things, the shape of life. When you change that, you make a rip in the very fabric of time, and what results is pure Darkness. Something that cannot be tamed.”

“The wisest and the brightest of my people forged this, laboring for many centuries. When it was done it was the crowning success of our civilization. We travelled back, the first time, so proud of ourselves, and mere moments after that travelling an army of those wielding the Dark Side of the Force was at our doorstep, and had spread out beyond the edges of the galaxy even into the far reaches of the universe. The cloud of the Dark Side was suffocating, and many of us died then and there.”

“But one young woman made one last act of desperation, and travelled back again to the moment of the forging. She poured her essence into the stone, pure desperation and hope, and the blow went awry. We battled the Dark Siders and we all of us died, but the galaxy and the universe were saved.”

The woman bows her head. “So you see, using this stone is an act of pure desperation. Walk away now. For only the pure of heart can have any hope of wrestling the stone to their own will.”

The mirror cave and the throne room flash into her mind. She’s not pure of heart by any stretch of imagination, she thinks, remembering how she’d almost (not quite) give in.

But the not quite has to be good enough. It has to be. “I don’t have another choice.”

The woman looks at her sharply. “You must be _certain_. You could wreck havoc and ruin upon the entire galaxy.”

“I think the First Order has done that already,” Rey says, and her voice is shaking now, she knows.

“Then,” the woman says, and there is a heavy sadness in her voice, “I cannot stop you. But the stone is a sword of the Dark. The best you may be able to do, though, is turn the blow awry. You must turn it into your dagger in the night, if you can.”

But what can I _do_ , Rey wants to ask, but doesn’t. Better not to hurry the person who holds the fate of everything in her hands.

“As you touch the stone,” the woman continues, “picture the moment you want to go to. Focus on it, and do not think about anything else.”

“Okay. I.”

“Good luck, Rey.” The woman’s voice is surprisingly gentle. “I sincerely hope you succeed.”

She steps aside, and the path to the stone is clear.

Except—

“You’re the person who travelled back, aren’t you? That’s why you’re here.”

The woman shakes her head, and her voice sounds like it’s coming from far away. “No. That beam of pure light you sense, that is my sister’s essence. She is forever tied to the stone.”

“So—wait!”

But the woman is gone, disappearing as quickly as she appeared. All that remains is the black thing, glittering innocuously.

Okay, Rey thinks. Okay. You can do this.

She already knows what she’s going to do, what choice she’s going to change. The throne room. She’ll strike down Snoke and Be—Ren both, and everything that came after won’t happen.

She pictures the scene in all its vividness, all the pain and anger and confusion and hurt she was feeling. Then she walks forward and touches the stone.

It’s a sudden rush of movement, everything going black then exploding into colors, and she’s falling, falling, falling, and then there’s something falling next to her and she grabs it, but it turns out to be a human hand, a person’s hand.

And then she hits something and the surface she hit gives way, and there’s a robotic voice saying “life pod passengers secured”, and the world becomes fuzzy again and then disappears.

—

She wakes to the slow steady hum of ship engines, and when she opens her eyes she’s in a—life pod? It looks like a life pod, certainly, with the cramped interior and what she cans see of the displays.

Both the seats at the cockpit are empty. Rey scrambles up to the pilot’s seat and flicks up the date.

_Oh no._

A blow gone awry indeed. Except it’s her blow gone awry, and she’s left with a life pod and a niggling sense of Dark at the back of a mind.

And a passenger.

She turns around to take a good look at whoever she’d grabbed as she was crawling. And.

Oh no no no.

Phasma.

—

She secures Phasma as tightly as she can. She’s not taking any chances, not for this, not with _her_. She takes off that shiny silver armor and—

Dammit. Phasma is badly wounded. There’s a gaping wound stretching across her stomach, though it doesn’t look too deep, and there are many dark bruises and vicious-looking cuts and burns. Ouch. She can’t not give her medical care, that’s wrong. But she’s also the _enemy_.

Rey sighs and gets to work.

—

She feels—

She tries not to think about it. But it’s too late, she was too late, she—

No no no no no. Not again.

She wants to cry. She wants to sit down and sleep for a week.

She wants none of this to ever have happen (but that didn’t work, did it).

What she has is a prisoner and a life pod and hands that shake as she settles her back against the wall and tries not to throw up, tries to quiet the voices of death screaming in her head.

—

When Phasma stirs, she’s half-naked, bound, and has a huge bandage plastered across her midsection. She’s disarmed.

Rey watches with mild interest as Phasma looks around and almost immediately spots Rey. “You! You complete utter—”

There’s a stream of vitriol that Rey chooses to ignore. The pod has plenty of supplies for both of them, but she wants to get to Tatooine or back to the planet with the stone. At least if she’s missed the big event she might as well try to help now or jump back and try again. The pod is programmed to navigate to the nearest big port. That’s a big conflict right there.

At length, Phasma wear herself out (Rey still hasn’t figured out how to get to Tatooine). She’s silent for a long moment. Then she says, so quietly that Rey almost doesn’t hear, “I surrender.”

Rey spins around, and the captain’s chair spins with her. “What?”

“I surrender,” Phasma mumbles again. Then, “Please unbind me.”

Rey has to laugh. That’s not a trick she’s going to fall for. That can hardly even be classified as a trick. “No.”

“Please,” Phasma says. “At least just my legs. Everything hurts.”

The thing is, it _does_ look like everything hurts. The life pod’s medkit hadn’t had strong painkillers, only the little weak pills used to cure headaches. And keeping still might be good for wounds, but Phasma’s stretched-out position looks like it has to be terrible for her muscles.

“If you try anything funny, you’ll be sorry,” Rey warns, because she can’t not. But she undoes the bindings.

Phasma grumbles something, and shifts. Her arms are tied up above her, but Rey isn’t going to do anything about that. She needs to sleep at some point, and even if she held Phasma at gunpoint she wouldn’t trust her to not try to kill her, so arms tied up it is.

“I’ll feed you in a bit,” Rey says. “I checked the ration store. There’s enough food that we could last several weeks without any outside assistance.”

Rey isn’t sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. A neutral thing, she decides. Not dying is a good thing. Being stuck for several weeks with Phasma would be a bad thing, something she definitely doesn’t want happening.

Except.

She’s been trying not to think too hard about it. But. Phasma is her prisoner. If Rey lets her go when she reaches planetside she’s just going to go back to the First Order. That’s obviously not an option.

But Rey sure as hell isn’t taking her to the planet with the stone. And the tiny remnants of the Resistance can’t hope to sustain keeping a prisoner.

It’d be easier for everyone if she just…died, Rey thinks.

And then her brain comes to a screeching halt, because. No, No. She didn’t just think about killing a prisoner. That’s—wrong. That’s wrong and evil and so many things she swore she’d never be.

Dammit.

She slumps into her chair and stares out into space, drumming her fingers against the console.

The little corner of new Darkness in her mind hums.

—

Rey realizes she has to actually, physically feed Phasma.

It’s an exercise in danger. There’s no cutlery abroad the pod, just those little dull toothpicks. She chooses one of the prepackaged meals that looks more chunky and less saucy-y, but even then, it’s a little bit messy. She’s worried about Phasma grabbing a toothpick and—what? Using it as a weapon? It’s stupid. But she worries about the toothpicks, and about her fingers, which brush dangerously close to Phasma’ mouth. (She’s trying not to think about how close her fingers are to Phasma’s mouth, which is red and bruised-looking and other kinds of thoughts she can’t have.)

Phasma is surprisingly docile, though. No attempts to snap her fingers off, no attempts to stab her or trip her or even just slightly inconvenience her. She’s just…accepting. As if Rey is an annoyance she has to deal with and can’t brush off.

It’s strange.

Rey tries to ignore it, though, finishes up feeding her and. Right. She needs to change Phasma’s bandages.

“Would you mind if I knocked you out for this part?” Rey asks. “Only, cleaning your wounds is going to hurt very badly and I don’t think you should be awake for that. It’s not a pleasant experience.”

Why did she ask? It’s not as if she’s giving Phasma a choice in the end.

But, surprisingly, Phasma nods. Obedient again. “Go ahead. I—go ahead.”

—

The dressing-changing is as clinical as Rey can make it. Still, when Phasma comes to, she winces visibly.

“What happened to you?” Rey can’t help asking even wen she knows, already. The Resistance. Or.

“Your friend,” Phasma says crisply. “Whatever he’s calling himself now. FN—anyway. I lost, and I was dead.” And then you rescued me, she doesn’t add. Doesn’t need to. The words sit between them, the ghosts of things unsaid.

“Where are we going?” Phasma asks abruptly.

Tatooine, Rey begins to say, on reflex, except. There should be no way for Phasma to escape or get a message to the First Order, but Rey isn’t going to risk it. “Nowhere. Nowhere you need to know, at least.”

“So, the nearest big port.” Phasma settles back against the wall, shifts as if trying to find a comfortable position. “That’s what. Kastor?”

It’s Kastor, but Rey isn’t going to give Phasma any information. She shrugs.

Phasma frowns. “I know you don’t trust me, but I’m trapped on a life pod with you. There is absolutely nothing I could do with that information.”

Which is true, Rey thinks, watching the dim light play across Phasma’s face. And yet. “You’re First Order,” she says lightly. “I trust you’ll find a way to use that information.”

Phasma’s mouth twists. Then she says, “You know.  My planet was in absolute chaos after the Empire fell. Everyone was squabbling to rule us, and we were being constantly attacked by pirates. The oh-so-fancy new Republic didn’t care about tiny Outer Rim planets. The First Order, though, they came in there and they had no mercy for anyone who disturbed the peace. We live better under them.” She shrugs. “It’s order. It’s peace. The galaxy needs stability, not freedom.”

“Stability through murder?” Rey scoffs. She can still feel the grit of Jakku deep in her bones. But. She can’t imagine living under the First Order. Even on Jakku, they were whispered about with terror.

“I didn’t say we were perfect,” Phasma says evenly. “Just that it’s the best choice.”

Rey thinks about dozens of worlds wiped out in a single blink of an eye. Destruction, some part of her mind supplies. Wanton destruction. “No,” she says. “It really, really isn’t?”

“I would prefer peace without people dying,” Phasma says, “but the world doesn’t work that way.” Rey kind of wants to strangle her. (Except for how that’s not who she is, she can’t be that.)

“The First Order’s killed so many billions of innocents—” Rey stops. Shakes her head. “I don’t know why I’m arguing with you. You’re wrong, and you’re also my prisoner. So.”

Phasma is almost—smiling? Which is. Strange. “Make me shut up, then.”

“That’s the difference,” Rey says abruptly, “between us and you. Your side would have made me shut up. I’m making the choice not to do that. And you know what? Between the two of us, I think the choice I’ve made is the harder one.”

—

Phasma says, into the silence, “I surrender.”

“What,” says Rey flatly. This is getting boring, this repetition. Surrender has never been in the First Order’s vocabulary.

“I surrender,” Phasma repeats. “I give up.”

“You were talking about how the First Order would bring peace and freedom to the galaxy,” Rey points out.

“Well yes.” Phasma shrugs as best as she’s able to in her bonds, which isn’t much. “But unfortunately, I’m stuck in a life pod with you right now, and as much as I enjoy a bit of bondage in bed, this is very much not a bed.” She pauses, as if considering. “You can even tie me up and have fun with me later, I don’t mind. You’re quite good-looking.”

That’s. There’s something sharp and shuddery under Rey’s skin, and she spits out, as fast as she can, “No. No. Just. No.”

But Phasma smiles in a way that Rey thinks is _knowing_. She can’t know how her words made Rey uncomfortably warm and flushed, of course, can’t know the sudden thoughts of beds and nakedness flashing through her mind. But. Phasma’s attractive without that damn silver armor. Short blond hair, bright blue eyes, and her cheekbones—well, Rey’s not been thinking about them, but it’s been with the greatest difficulty that she’s suppressed her thoughts.

She wants to _touch_. She won’t, of course, but. She wants.

So she gets up from where she was stretched out across from Phasma (a safe distance away, of course) and goes to the console. Pretends to fiddle with the dials.

“I know how to fly these things,” Phasma calls from the ground. “And you’re not flying or navigating or even checking up on life support.” Unsaid: _I hit a nerve, didn’t I_.

You did, Rey thinks.

And she wants to hit Phasma for that, slap her, beat her unconscious until her blood spatters on the ground—

No. No. She wants to do none of those things.

The Darkness mutters, and recedes.

It must be a side-effect, Rey realized a while back, of—whatever happened with the stone, and she can’t wait for it to go away. Can’t wait to stop feeling like this, anger and hatred and despair bubbling uncomfortably under her skin, making her want to reach out and strangle Phasma with her bare hands for all the First Order has done to her, to the Resistance, to the galaxy—

Stop.

“Dammit,” she whispers, and wants to cry. But she can’t even do that, not with Phasma watching. Not without giving away where to prod her until it hurts.

She pushes her fingernails against her wrist absentmindedly, the dull pain a welcome relief against the darkness of her thoughts.

Luke, she thinks. She needs to speak to Luke. He would at least know what was doing this. Help her stop it. But no, she can’t even have that. Because Ren—because she—and she couldn’t fix it, and—

Sleep, she thinks. I need sleep. And to stop thinking.

A Force-suggestion, then. A gentle compulsion on her own mind.

It shouldn’t work, but it does, and the world goes dark.

—

Sleep, it turns out, sharpens her mind just enough for her to find the navigation on the life pod and tinker with it, change their course. The First Order life pods are not so much life pods as very small ships, complete with their very own hyperdrive capabilities. It’s the only good thing about this whole stupid mess she’s got herself into.

The hyperdrive can barely be called a hyperdrive, though. They have to travel thirty hours to get to Kastor, two weeks to Tatooine. Her one chance to change what happened, to fix what happened, and it’s being destroyed by a hyperdrive and a First Order operative.

And she can’t _think_.

For one, the Darkness hasn’t gone away. She’s hoping it will fade away, eventually, but so far it’s not done that.

For another, Phasma.

“What’s _wrong_ with this life pod?” Phasma grumbles, shifting in her bindings. That’s the third time she’s said that in the past ten minutes.

And Rey understands the feeling, she does, but she wants to _think_.

“Do you want me to gag you?” She doesn’t snap, does her level best to keep her voice even, but it’s difficult.

“Only if you want to.” Phasma smirks. _Smirks_. “I’m not going to ask you.”

“Okay.” She takes a deep breath. This is frustrating, but. If she can’t get Phasma to shut up (not without using some kind of force, and she’s too jittery right now, she won’t do that kind of thing without thinking) then at least she can make her talk. Maybe she’ll even let slip some kind of useful information. “You were talking about your planet earlier.”

Phasma is smiling at her, like she knows what she’s trying to do. But. “Deandor. Tiny Mid-Rim planet, on the edge of the Trevann System. Doubt you’ve ever heard of either the planet or the system, unless the Resistance had some kind of stake there that I don’t know of.”

Rey hasn’t. “No. But I doubt you’d ever heard of Jakku before the First Order came barging in, either.”

“Fair enough.” Phasma’s lips twist wryly. “But no-one cared about Deandor, you know. Not even the Senator who was supposed to represent us. Not that she ever got to speak in the Senate, because Deandor’s not a big trading planet or a Core world, so who cares about our minor concerns?”

And that—

“I lived my life in _Jakku_ ,” Rey snaps, “but I didn’t join the First Order and decide to murder half the galaxy.” (She carefully doesn’t think about the multitudes of coincidences that lead to her meeting Poe and fighting the First Order.)

“Well, good for you,” Phasma says.

She turns her head away (her hair falls across her face in a way that—don’t think about it, Rey) and closes her eyes.

Dammit.

Rey doesn’t want to talk to Phasma. Shouldn’t want to talk to Phasma.

But she’s forgotten how to be alone. It used to be easy. Or, not easy, but something she could push through, something she could endure.

Now, though, the enforced separation from the people she’s come to care about is hard. The tendrils of whatever she took into her when she touched the stone, wrapped around her heart, only make the ache of loneliness seem like a yawning, gaping chasm she’s teetering at the edge of.

 _Stop_.

She presses her palm against her gritty, sore eyes. Takes a deep breath. “Tell me about—something.”

Phasma affects, for a moment, something that might be a scowl. But then, “Deandor was a fucking shithole, but,” she pauses for a moment, takes a breath, “it’s stupid, but sometimes I miss it. Never told anyone that before but.” She lifts a single shoulder, “it’s something that stayed with me through the wipes. ‘Course, they never do full wipes on officer-class soldiers, so maybe the people in charge _want_ me to miss it. I don’t know. But. I miss it.”

Rey doesn’t speak. This—this is something she’s never heard before. Finn has talked about his time as a soldier of the First Order, but only in the vaguest of terms. He’s never shared details like this.

A thread of a plan begins to form. If she can get Phasma to co-operate, get information from her—

But Phasma is smiling, something far away and wistful, and Rey can’t bring herself to break the peace, to press Phasma about the wipes. Instead, she asks, “Tell me more about Deandor.”

Phasma presses her lips together. “Well, there was this old folktale about the whales who lived in the heart of Deandor, swimming within its core, and the watcher-girl who was tasked with herding them…”

—

“I liked that story about the whales,” Rey says, the next time she’s feeding Phasma. (And the feeding is—strange, and she’s feeling like she should untie Phasma’s hands, at least, but. No.)

“It’s an old story,” Phasma shrugs, once she’s finished chewing her food. But Rey can tell that she’s pleased.

“Do you—you wouldn’t happen to know any more, would you?” Rey feels almost shy, asking that. But it had been an interesting story, and a good way to pass the long hours. And. Well. She doesn’t know that many stories.

“I might.” Phasma isn’t looking at Rey, but there’s something in how she holds herself that Rey won’t think about, but which makes her feel a thousand butterflies fluttering in her stomach.

—

“Speaking theoretically,” Rey begins, “what would happen if I dropped you off at the nearest space port?”

Phasma gives her a look. It’s a little disturbing that Rey can tell what that look means. (‘Are you stupid?’)

“Right.” She sighs, pinches the bridge of her nose. The stone hadn’t destroyed everything in the galaxy, but it also did the least helpful thing possible. She’s stuck with Phasma now, and she can feel precious moments of time slipping from between her fingers. If Phasma wasn’t here, she could go find Kylo Ren and the First Order right now, sneak up on them and—

And then what, Rey, she snaps at herself. She’s just one person. She can’t bring the entire First Order down on her own. What they need is an army. What they need are soldiers, and ships, and equipment. Things which the First Order has, things which the Resistance doesn’t have anymore. General Leia is trying to gather resources, but it’ll take years before the Resistance is back at its former strength.

Unless, of course, they steal all that from the First Order.

“Do you think,” Rey asks slowly, “that Stormtroopers can break their conditioning?”

Phasma laughs. She laughs a full-bodied, deep (beautiful) laugh that reverberates around the small cabin.

But. “Finn did it,” she points out. “Finn broke his conditioning. He’s working for us now. He fought _you_ , and won.” She can’t help the mocking note that creeps into her voice. With all the losses they’ve had, she’ll take her victories where she can. “You would have died, if I wasn’t around”

Phasma stops laughing abruptly and straightens up. “FN-2187 was an aberration. An unusual case, and I’m sure someone made a mistake somewhere along the line. It was something that never happened before, and will never happen again.” Her voice is ice-cold and detached.

But. The words sound almost rote, a response learned off by heart. There’s an undercurrent of something that sounds almost like fear running through them.

So.

“Are you _sure_?” Rey needles. “There’s obviously some sort of weakness in the conditioning methods, for them to fail. Unless Finn was strong enough to break his conditioning even when it was executed perfectly.” Unlike you, Rey doesn’t add. She thinks she’s made her point well enough.

“The First Order merely conditions its soldiers to reinforce their strength and enable rank and unit discipline. We are loyal to the goals of the First Order whether or not the conditioning exists.” Phasma speaks stiffly, as if it’s not really her speaking.

Her conditioning, Rey realizes with a chill. That’s what the conditioning does. To break through that—she shudders. “But you’ve been conditioned too. How do you know that’s the truth?”

“I serve the First Order with dedication and loyalty.” Phasma is angry, now, her voice fierce and lips turned up. And this. This isn’t a rote response, it’s knowledge. (And frankly, for Rey, it’s a relief from the monotone obviously-learned phrases.) “The First Order will bring peace and harmony to the galaxy. You might disagree with our methods, but in the end you’ll see why we fight the way we’re fighting.”

The words ring with a honesty that Rey doesn’t think could be there if Phasma had been conditioned to speak them.

But then again, what does she know about being conditioned, about being mind-wiped? That’s something she can escape easily, after all.

So maybe.

Maybe there’s a possibility.

“…How does this conditioning occur?” She’s careful to keep her tone level, to not give away any hint of what she’s thinking.

But it’s too late. Phasma is giving her a glare that’s both angry and suspicious. “Why would you think I’d tell you anything at all?”

Because you were telling me, just now, what I wanted to know. You were answering all the questions I asked. But Rey doesn’t voice the thought aloud, as much as she wants to. It’s not going to help. Instead, she says, “Okay. Fine. Did you—” She can’t even formulate a question that won’t provoke Phasma further. “Can I tell you about Jakku? About how I found Beebee-Eight and got off the planet?” There. Information for information. Not valuable information she’s giving on her part, granted, but it’s still information. An equal exchange of things.

“Fine,” Phasma says sharply.

So Rey settles down to tell her story.

By the time she’s gotten to her not-really-a-fight with Finn in the market, Phasma is smiling reluctantly. But then she tells Phasma about how B—Kylo Ren tried to wipe her mind, the part Phasma already knows, somewhat, and Phasma sighs.

“That’s part of what conditioning is,” she says. And she won’t say anything else on the topic, no matter how hard Rey presses her.

—

Rey hates the stone, she decides. She hates the stone because without it she’d be on Tatooine still, with the General and Poe and Finn, at least, even if she was still at a loss as to how to defeat the First Order. (It’s not like the stone _helped_ with that, anyway.)

The thing she’s carrying with her, the dark, deep anger and hatred, is the other reason she hates the stone. It keeps whispering to her, indistinct mutterings of things she knows are wrong and evil but can’t shake. It sticks to her like a grain of spilled slop, sticky and tacky and annoying, something she’s constantly aware of.

A headache throbs behind her temple. No painkillers for her, though; they’re short on supplies and Phasma needs them a lot more than she does. She can’t even go to sleep; she needs to change Phasma’s dressings in maybe an hour and forty-five minutes of restless sleep is just going to make her feel even worse that she felt before she decided to sleep.

“Is everything alright?”

Rey blinks and startles from where she’s leaning against the console. It’s Phasma, she realizes after a second, uncharacteristic concern in her voice, and something that could almost be tenderness.

Except for how Phasma is a ruthless murdering First Order officer and tenderness is probably not in her vocabulary.

“My head hurts.” Rey grimaces. “And now isn’t a good time to sleep.” She turns to face Phasma, and she knows she looks terrible, but she still can’t help but be offended by Phasma’s critical look.

“You don’t look too good,” Phasma says, matter-of-factly.

I know, Rey wants to snap, but she restrains herself with some effort. She’s not going to start snarling now, of all times, just because she feels a bit jittery and under the weather. She’s not going to let that damned stone win. “I don’t feel very good,” she admits, instead. “It’s not just the headache it’s—” Everything, she wants to say. And. Well. She isn’t going to snap, but she isn’t in the mood to find the perfectly diplomatic phrase either, so she says, “It’s everything.”

“You should get some sleep,” Phasma offers. She shifts around awkwardly. “I know you said it’s not a good time—”

“Your dressings need changing now.”

“Ah.” A moment. Then, “If you untie my—” Phasma stops. Seems to reconsider, if the expression on her face is anything to go by. “I’m sure waiting a few hours won’t hurt.”

If Phasma pressed her enough, Rey might have unbound her hands just to stop the annoyance. The fact that she doesn’t sends a strange warmth seeping through Rey’s body. It almost—almost—drives away that dark thing lodged in her chest. (Except for how it doesn’t, because apparently it’s here to stay.) “We don’t have enough bacta to last, and not many other medical supplies. I don’t want your wound to get infected.”

In the dim light of the life pod, Rey could almost swear Phasma blushes. “…Thank you. Do you want—whatever’s bothering you, if you maybe. I don’t know. Tell me about it?”

And Rey really, really wants to. She wants to spill all her fears and anger and sadness and all the things that have been festering inside her. But Phasma is her prisoner, and her enemy. It would be a monumentally stupid idea. “It’s not the kind of thing I want to talk about.”

“I—okay.” Phasma bites her lip. Looks almost shy. “Is there anything you want me to do for you, at least?”

“I really do look terrible, don’t I?”

It slips out before she can think about it, but Phasma almost smiles. “Yes, you do. I’m getting sympathy pains just thinking about it.”

“I.” It’s silly and stupid, but Rey remembers songs she listened to on her old radio in Jakku when she was a child. It makes her almost homesick. And Phasma did offer. “If you could sing to me? I know it’s silly, but. It’d make me feel better, I think.”

Phasma blinks. “Sing?”

“Yes. I. Nevermind—” What is she even thinking? Phasma is a First Order soldier, why would she _sing_ , of all things?

But Phasma is clearing her throat. “All I remember are old songs from my home planet, but if you want me to—”

Rey nods eagerly. Almost a little too eagerly, because the movement sends spiking pain through her head.

Phasma’s voice is nice, though, if a little rough and raspy and rusty from disuse, quavering in places and stumbling for words in other. Rey closes her eyes, and the throbbing in her head almost fades away.

—

“I promise not to kill you if you untie my hands,” Phasma says. The way her voice lilts, it might even be a joke.

The problem is, Rey believes her.

She shouldn’t, of course, but she believes her. She wants to let Phasma go. Wants to have her free, wants to see if she’ll touch her, kiss her, hold her—

No. “No,” Rey says. It comes out more fond than stern. Which is very annoying.

“Isn’t it tiring for you to keep doing this stuff for me?” Phasma jerks her head as if to indicate—everything.

Which is about accurate, Rey supposes. Feeding her, moving her around so her limbs don’t cramp, changing her dressings, tending to her other…needs, all of those things are complicated and time-consuming and frustrating. It’d be easier to let Phasma go, let her take care of herself.

Except for how the life pod might end up being turned around and taken to the First Order base, with Rey tosses out of the airlock, of course. Except for that one small fact it’d be easier. “No.”

Phasma— _glares_ at her.

It’s strangely adorable, the furrow of her eyebrows, how her mouth curves into a pout, the not-quite-angry glower.

“You don’t think you can take me in a fight, is that it?”

Phasma is taunting, teasing. Almost playful, Rey thinks, but she can imagine how that fight would go. Phasma might sneak up on her while she’s asleep, but the Force would be disturbed anyway, and she’d get some kind of warning. And Phasma wouldn’t have a weapon—Rey tossed her blasters in the recycler some time ago, to forestall any thoughts of escape. So it’d just be her, trying to disarm Rey, kicking and punching and scratching, keeping Rey in close quarters, body-to-body, anything to stop her from wielding her lightsaber with the deadly force it can effect.

Rey might struggle, for a while. She’s good (maybe even very good) with a staff, decent with the ’saber now. But she can’t fight one-on-one without space to swing her weapons all that well, especially with the height and weight Phasma has on her. (Phasma is a head taller than her, maybe even more, and standing she’d be conscious of the height difference in a way she isn’t now.) So she’d struggle, and maybe Phasma would even be close to winning.

But Rey would be able to use the Force to push Phasma away at some point, make some space for her to pull out her ’saber. And that’d be the end of the fight. In less than five minutes, her saber would be buried to the hilt in Phasma’s chest—

“—not stupid, even if you let me go I know when I’m beaten. I’ll stay quiet for you I promise.”

“No!” This time, Rey does snap. Whatever she’s still carrying inside her, that cursed remain from the stupid stone, is practically humming. She can still see her lightsaber pushed through Phasma, still know the damage she can cause. “I said no.”

Phasma shuts up.

And she’s either scared or angry, the way she’s looking at Rey. Rey doesn’t have time to deal with this, with the thing inside her still whispering to her. She shouldn’t _want_ to deal with it.

Let Phasma sulk, for all she cares.

But she can’t.

She lets her head fall back against the pod’s walls. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just—I’m sorry.”

Phasma doesn’t look at her. Doesn’t smile or glare or—do anything really.

Damn it all to whatever Sith hells there are. Damn Phasma for making Rey want her to smile at her.

Well. She can tell a little bit of the truth, at least. Maybe. Maybe that’ll help. “We’re not going to Kastor,” Rey says. “I can’t tell you where we’re actually going, that’s privileged information, but we’re not going to Kastor.”

“I know,” Phasma says. She looks back at Rey, now, and she’s not smiling, but she’s not glaring anymore either. “I figured. Either the hyperdrive is faulty or we’re not going anywhere closer to us than Hoth or some other wasteland of a planet.”

Rey laughs. “Well, we’re not going to Hoth. But you’re right that the hyperdrive is faulty, at least, so this isn’t going to be a short trip.”

Phasma groans, but it’s theatrical. Exaggerated. It almost feels like it was a groan let out to make Rey laugh again.

If it was, at least, it was successful. Rey snorts, and settles back properly where she’s seated.

(She can almost, almost imagine that the dark thing isn’t prowling within her, waiting for the chance to erupt and destroy everything.)

—

Blood.

So much blood, bright red and sharp, and it’s on her hands, and her lightsaber, and it’s not _hers_. She can smell it, the sharp metal stench of death. She’s clutching onto Master Luke, and he’s looking back with sad old eyes, breathing shuddering, rattling breaths.

“Rey, what have you done?” he cries.

“I—”

But he falls silent, limp and cold in her arms.                                   

He’s not breathing.

No. No no no no no.

“Please,” she says. Screams. “Please. No. Wake up. I’m sorry.”

But his body slips from her grip, and the blood—

The blood is his, and the wound on his torso is in the shape of a lightsaber. It could be any lightsaber, but Rey knows _exactly_ what weapon made this wound.

The darkness laughs and laughs.

She’s struggling against it, drowning, flailing in whatever eldritch power is caught in her mind, but she’s losing.

 _You invited me in,_ whatever it is laughs, _do you think you’ll be rid of me so easily?_

Go away, I don’t want you, Rey wants to yell, but she can’t, she can’t breathe or talk or move and—

“Rey.”

That voice. She knows that voice, but she can’t think, with the horrible choking spread of everything wrapping around her.

“Rey. _REY_.”

Blinding light, and the voice.

She grabs onto that voice, forces her eyes open.

She’s lying on some cool floor, sweat-soaked but (she lifts a trembling, blurry hand up to her face to check) not a single drop of blood on her. Someone is calling her name, again and again, with a certain urgency.

Rey pushes herself up onto her elbows, to try to figure out—

_Phasma._

Phasma, looking—shaken? Or scared. Eyes wild, straining against her bonds. Still calling her name.

“I’m fine,” Rey says, her voice coming out hoarse and creaking. “I’m fine. It was just—just a nightmare.” Except for how the Darkness is still coiled around her chest, burrowed deep between her ribs. She can feel it, and it makes her sick.

“ _Damn_. Curse it all.”

She hadn’t meant to say that aloud, but by the sharp glance Phasma gives her she hadn’t been at all successful at preventing herself from speaking aloud.

Now Phasma is going to pity her. Or think she’s crazy. Both options make her want to hit something which. It’s the dark thing inside her speaking, which is not good at all. It is, in fact, bad.

“Come here.”

Phasma’s voice breaks Rey out of her thoughts, and she gapes in a rather silly way. “What? I don’t—”

“Come here,” Phasma says. Not exactly angry, but terse. “Just—if you want some kind of—contact or something—” She breaks off, her cheeks red and her eyes flashing, looking horribly embarrassed.

But Rey is already crawling to the space next to her.

If she was more awake, if she hadn’t been caught up in the depths of—whatever that was mere minutes ago, maybe she wouldn’t have done it. But she isn’t, and she was. So she settles against Phasma’s side, and Phasma squirms where she’s tied up until they’re both comfortable.

Phasma is warm, and nice-feeling. Whatever was raging in her mind and body settles, recedes.

“Thanks,” Rey mumbles.

Phasma doesn’t reply, but Rey swears she can _feel_ her smile.

—

Rey is leaning on the wall of the pod, opposite Phasma and just—looking at her. They’d been talking, before, but it had trailed off into silence. Now she’s just staring at Phasma’s cheekbones and blue eyes. It’s creepy, Rey thinks, and can’t make herself look away.

“Kiss me,” Phasma says, suddenly. Completely out of the blue.

“What?”

Rey knows she sounds stupid. But. She can’t have just heard that. Phasma doesn’t—

“Kiss me,” Phasma says again.

She sounds insistent, and Rey is just—she doesn’t know how to deal with this anymore.

So she leans down and kisses Phasma, straight on the mouth.

It’s a good kiss. Not that Rey’s been kissed enough times in her life to compare, but it’s a good kiss. Deep and smooth and there’s a bit of tongue, and _oh_. Phasma does something that sends sparks down Rey’s spine. She’s straining against her bindings to reach Rey, and that’s kind of hot, how much Phasma wants her.

The dark thing inside her settles. Calms. Almost disappears.

(That, Rey thinks, she can learn to live with. If it can calm and fade into the background, the maybe, maybe, she can wrestle with the darkness and control it.)

Eventually, the kiss ends. Rey sits back on her heels and looks at Phasma. She’s flushed and there are spots of color on her cheeks and she looks just. Happy and a wreck.

I trust you, Rey thinks. I trust you.

In that split second, she makes a decision. She calls up the Force, and allows Phasma’s bindings to fall loose.

She trusts Phasma. She’s still loyal to the First Order, of course, but. Rey doesn’t think she’ll hurt her. Not while Rey has the advantage.

She trusts that Phasma doesn’t want to kill her. Because, with the way Rey can manipulate the Force, the only way to stop Rey is to kill her.

And, Rey thinks, Phasma wouldn’t do that. Not now.

“I trust you,” Rey says.

Phasma is rubbing at her wrists absent-mindedly, but when Rey speaks, she looks up and smiles at her. Her smile makes Rey’s heart flutter again.

(Maybe. Maybe, if she’s careful, she can slowly convince her—but no. That’s a thought for another time. Instead, Rey takes Phasma’s face between her hands and kisses her again.)

**Author's Note:**

> There were a few bumps in the road, but eventually, Phasma came around to joining the Resistance and with the information she provided + many years of hard work the Resistance defeated the First Order. Rey and Phasma went together and roamed the galaxy very happily ever after. The end.


End file.
